Visit to Victoria Falls, Zambia

Over Easter, we took a long weekend and flew down to Livingstone in southern Zambia to visit the Victoria Falls. At 1.5 km wide and 100 m high, the falls are an impressive site at any time of the year. At this time of the year, it is rainy season and the falls were in full flow. There is normally white water rafting in the canyons below the falls, but with such a high flow rate, they had cancelled that activity.
The falls are part in Zimbabwe and part in Zambia, but given the government forced decline in Zimbabwe, almost all tourists stay on the Zambian side nowadays. Zambia was a pleasant surprise, at least the small parts we saw of it. Good roads, almost every one speaks English, western clothes are common, and no power outages while we were there. Livingstone is quite the tourist area with many of the modern facilities run by South Africans. The town itself is somewhat dilapidated, but the road to the falls, 11 k away has many new hotels, shopping plazas, and restaurants catering to the more wealthy tourists. Livingston gets its name from Dr David Livingston the famous explorer back in the 1800s who bought news of Africa and its highlights to the then western world.

There are many activities set up for tourists to do and most hotels have an activities office which organise the bookings. The operators then come and pick you up from the hotel and drop you off afterwards if desired. The centre piece is of course the falls and all the different ways to see it. You can see the falls from pleasure boats from above the falls, you can fly over them in a helicopter or a microlight, walk down to the water’s edge where the water goes over the precipice. The best viewing is from the small park on the down stream side of the falls. The falls are part of the Zambezi river . The river is normally wide and gracefully flowing along. At the point of the falls however is a large deep fault that the water drops down into. From there the fault zigzags back and forth for many km downstream. All of the viewing anywhere is done from the top of the canyon, level with the top of the falls. Hence the downstream view of the falls is level with the top of the falls looking as the water falls down into the canyon. The flow rate is so high though (5 million lpm) that the thunder from the water is quite loud. There is a huge wall of mist rising out of the canyon that can be seen 30 km away. The local name for the falls translated means – the smoke that thunders. The mist rises up about 100 m above the falls then falls back to ground as rain. And rain it is! The little plateau, immediately downstream of the falls, is about 50 m from the water wall and where most of the viewing and pictures of the falls are taken. The falling mist just pelts down like a massive rain storm. No matter what you wear, you are going to get wet. Cameras and phones are going to get destroyed. Most tourists just walk in shorts and no shirt or a skimpy top, knowing they are going to get wet. One enterprising entrepreneur rents out rain jackets, but it is an exercise in futility as you are just going to get drenched. It is all quite fun to experience it. Then stand back 150 m from the falls and it is hot and dry.

On Friday night we took a river boat ride up above the falls on the African Princess, a sister boat to the African Queen. A little more luxurious than the boat used by Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart! The Zambian side of the river is another park that stretches up river a ways. People can ride elephants in the park. That didn’t appeal to us however too much.
On Saturday morning we took a helicopter ride (Flight of the Angels) over and around the falls which was a great way to see the whole geology of the area and understand why they are like they are. You can see the big hotels that Zimbabwe used to offer but now are hardly used. After that we got taken to the falls park and a guide spent a couple of hours with us showing us along the paths and telling us about the falls and their history. Yep, he too got soaked to the bone. For lunch we went to the Royal Livingstone Hotel. It is on the Zambezi River waterfront right just back from the top of the falls. A magnificent view and beautiful grounds plus a deck over the water for drinking cocktails and watching the sunset on the other side of the Zambezi, with the roar of the falls a 100m away. The wait staff are immaculately dressed, the maitre-d wearing a tux and tails. The reception staff wear the old English pith exploring helmets. Very quaint. The meals are superb and the desserts are a work of art. There are a number of shops around this hotel and another nearby that sell high end souvenirs and house decorations with an African flavour. After lunch we went back to the park at the falls for some more watching. There is a bridge over the canyon just down from the falls. The east end is Zimbabwe and the west is Zambia. We walked out on the bridge to watch the bungee jumping and gorge swings off it into the canyon.

On Sunday we went with an operator, Abseil Zambia, to one of the canyons about 3 km downstream. They had set up a series of adrenaline activities like flying foxes, gorge swings, abseiling down the cliffs there. We signed up for a couple of goes on each of the activities. The abseiling was the most moderate. It was Ramona’s first time to do this but she did well. It was 2 min to go down and then 30 mins to walk back out of the canyon. Next was the flying fox. They strapped you into a harness attached to the middle of your back. At the top the strap was attached to a pulley. The pulley then runs on a cable stretched across the canyon. When swinging you are suspended like you are flying through the air. This had a 5 m long run to the cliff edge and then you leapt off into space. While running the strap is not tight so when you get to the edge and jump off you fall for about ½ m and during that time your heart is in your mouth. Dang! Once the strap comes tight and you realise it is not going to break and plummet you to the rocks below, you find yourself hanging horizontally and flying along the cable out over the canyon. It is quite cool. On the last time I took the video camera with me to capture the flying over the precipice out into the canyon.
Next came the Gorge Swing. After having seen it earlier that morning I was quite dreading it. This is no ordinary swing! Like the flying fox it is based on a main wire stretched over the canyon. Another cable is attached at one end to a pulley rolling on the main wire. The other end of this swing cable is attached to you via a harness. The scary thing is that the swing cable does not get tight until you have fallen down into the canyon 53m. Only then does it come tight and act like a swing and you swing back and forth over the canyon. So you start off on standing on this concrete platform sticking out over the gorge. Then you jump off and literally free fall these 53m which takes about 3.5 seconds. Then the swing cable snaps tight and you swing out into the canyon. Wow, does that 3.5 secs scare the heck out of you. You see the cliff face just rushing past you so fast and your mind tells you it is all over. It was just scary how fast you are falling before the cable comes tight and takes the weight. Ramona and I did it twice as a tandem strapped to each other at the hip. Me being heavier would fall faster and Ramona would get pulled over on top of me just as the swing cable came tight. Then once the cable was tight it was a nice swing back and forth over the canyon for a few minutes till they lowered us down to the valley floor. One of the assistants took our video camera and videoed us during the event. Not a movie to be shown in public. That is some scary activity, boy!

Monday had us flying back to Lusaka, the Zambian capital where we had a few hours to wait until our flight back to TZ. The taxi driver we had met on Friday was there to pick us up and take us to a shopping mall. We caught a good ol USA movie full of car chases and shoot outs, “Armored.” The taxi driver then took us back to the airport for a midnight flight back to Nairobi then Arusha.